Re: trip to Kauai, HI

My wife plan to visit Kauai, HI March 8th - 12th and would like to know if anyone has any ideas on where to stay, what to do and any tiki places we should visit..

Mahalo,

Tikitatt

If you can afford it, the Hyatt at Poipu Beach.

Possibly even better, and certainly less expensive, is the Outrigger Plantation Resort. The Ocean front rooms are incredible!

These threads should tell you much of what you need to know:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=1171&forum=16&34

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=18794&forum=16

Thank you for your help... We don't plan to go till March so we have a lot of planning to do.

Again, thank you for your help and the thread....

Mahalo,

Tikitatt

If you want the real island experience, stay out of Princeville. It's overpriced resort hotels with no tikis. It looks more like Beverly Hills, complete with Greco-Roman statues. Again, let me say-- No Tikis. We made the mistake of staying there when we visited a few years ago. It's just a bunch of timeshares owned by rich people, and you pretty much can't even tell that you're in Hawaii. It was a total bummer.
The Island Grill and Bar up near Princeville is good, and the folks there are nice. They make a good lava flow, and they're open pretty late.
A movie tour is fun, too. You get to see the beaches from Donovan's Reef, Gilligan's Island (when it was filmed there), and also Hanalei Bay from South Pacific. Pretty cool.

Just spent a week in Kauai in October and had a great time. Stayed in Kapaa (time-share thingy) and had a condo with full kitchen. My friend and I were on a budget so we shopped at Safeway for our meals. We did eat lunch and dinner out a couple of times. I will have to look up the names of the places where we ate (review to follow). We drove all over the island which can easily be done in one day. We took a Catamaran trip around the Na Pali coast and if you don't get sea-sick I highly recommend it. Great fun (I'll be back with the vendor name and a review). Everyone was real friendly and made us feel welcome. The island is beautiful and we were lucky as it was excellent weather and we missed the earthquake issues and rain. You will love Kauai, be sure to take pictures. :)

Go stay in Hanalei in a house or studio apt, if you want the local, small town, old Hawaii experience. You'll also be closest to the most beautiful spots on the island, including Hanalei Bay, Ke'e beach sunsets, Na Pali coast and Kalalau trail, and multiple quiet, deserted beaches. Nani Kaua'i.

Princeville really turned you off , huh ? Would you care to elaborate further ? We were thinking of renting a very nice house in Princeville with ocean view for $ 1300 for a week which I thought was a pretty good deal ( sleeps 8 ) . Right now we're torn between Kauai and Hawaii . Got to decide soon .

On 2007-08-02 00:24, sushiman wrote:
Princeville really turned you off , huh ? Would you care to elaborate further ? We were thinking of renting a very nice house in Princeville with ocean view for $ 1300 for a week which I thought was a pretty good deal ( sleeps 8 ) . Right now we're torn between Kauai and Hawaii . Got to decide soon .

I had originally written a post that was more like a novel so I did some editing. The long and short of Princeville is this--
It's a Master Planned Community. Real Estate Investors buy land here, and there's golf courses and spas and all that type of stuff. It's like living in a gated community. I just didn't like it. I like places with a little more personality.
The hotel we stayed in (Hanalei Bay resort, I think it was) was very nice which was sort of what attracted us to stay there. We just didn't realize that it was inside a Master Planned Community. Like I said, not my cup of tea.
So, here's some analysis:
Food-- the only restaurants around were in hotels. Five-Diamond hotels. Like $50 to $100 per person. It's okay once, but not every night. That's how we found the Paradise Bar and Grill. We were just looking for something that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg.

Beaches--The beaches have more of a northern exposure so they get pounded almost all the time with the exception of the summer months (June, July and August). When we visited in January '04, conditions all around the island were pretty rough for snorkeling, but the beaches near and around Princeville were downright hazardous.

Driving--Princeville is pretty far away from all the happenings in Poipu and Kapa'a. It was something like a 30 or 45 minute drive one way. It gets old after the first few days. Plus the gas is expensive. You might save some money on the hotel, buy you might pay more for gas. Something to think about when planning your trip.

Having said all that, Kauai is a great island and you'll enjoy it a lot. If you're thinking of going to the Big Island instead, that's also a lot of fun. It's hard to recommend one over the other without knowing what you want to do. The Big Island is BIG. It takes about 3 to 4 hours to drive all the way around without stopping. Kauai is a lot smaller. probably take you less than 1/2 the time.

Seas are rougher on Kauai owing to its location at the northwest end of the islands. Diving isn't great all the time, but when it's good you're supposed to be able to see some great stuff-- like big pelagics. If you want something easier, like just some snorkeling, the Big Island is nice (though diving is excellent here too!). Because of it's size, there's almost always a nice calm beach on the lee side of the island. Conditions can be rough on all the other islands, but there's always at least one beach on the big island that's still really nice.

Plus on the Big Island you got the volcano park and the Mauna Kea observatory. Pretty cool. I'd think you'd need a longer vacation to explore the Big Island than you would Kauai, so that's something to consider too. The volcano park takes a whole day in itself. Leave really early, get home real late. Feel free to PM me if you want more info on anything.
Aloha!

I was there in Nov 2005. We stayed at my parent's timeshare in Poipu Beach. Our favorite spot to eat/drink on Kauai was Keoki's Paradise.
http://www.keokisparadise.com/ Don't miss it! And make sure you get yourself some hula pie.

And don't forget this thread, with some great Kauai info from dogbytes on page 6 near the bottom-

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic=216&forum=16&start=75

We will be back there this Nov again. We missed Tahiti Nui, the Green Garden, and Tidepools at the Hyatt...we won't miss them this time!

Have fun!